Arnold Sports Festival: Q&A with Derek Poundstone

Friday

Feb 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMFeb 29, 2008 at 11:53 AM

The Arnold Sports Festival returns to Columbus this weekend, with some 17,000 competitors taking part in events ranging from table tennis to arm wrestling. Each day, The Dispatch catches up with a participant.

DEREK POUNDSTONE

Age: 26

Size: 6 feet 1, 310 pounds

Hometown: Waterbury, Conn.

Residence: Waterbury, Conn.

Occupation: Police officer

Achievements: Won the 2007 America's Strongest Man national championship in North Carolina. Set world records in the Log Clean and Press (lifting 280-pound log 13 times in 60 seconds) and the Block Press (lifting 319-pound over head).

Q: How did you get involved in Strongman competition?

A: I was the Connecticut powerlifting champion and set a bunch of records when I was 19. At 20, I took the plunge into Strongman.

Q: I understand you had a major back injury about 16 months ago. What happened?

A: I was getting ready for the world championships and was training pretty heavy. About two weeks before it, I was dead-lifting and I ruptured the L4/5 disc in my back.

Q: What did doctors tell you?

A: The original doctor, who's a close friend, referred me to a neurosurgeon. He said he doubted whether I'd be able to lift anything heavy ever again. He told me I could still be active. But he said that dead-lifting, because of the amount of force you need as a pro strongman, he didn't think it'd be possible.

Q: What was your reaction?

A: I went to the bathroom and started to dry-heave. It was the first time I got nauseous from someone's words. It was quite shocking and very depressing.

Q: What happened after that?

A: A week after the injury, I started to heal pretty good. I was able to walk around a little bit. I thought, ‘I'm not going to let this sideline me. I'll do something else.' Two-and-a-half weeks after my injury, I entered a bench-press competition and won. Slowly, I started getting confidence in my lower back. Almost a year to the day of the injury, I dead-lifted 855 pounds. So not only did I come back, but I lifted 50 more pounds than I had before.

Q: How's the pain factor now?

A: To this day, I'm still in quite a bit of pain. I can't really sleep on my back. I sleep on my side. If I have to stand for a long period of time, my lower back kills me. But I found out during my rehab that the more time I took off, the more I let my back muscles atrophy, the more my back muscles hurt. I realized I had to constantly train my back.

Q: How big is the Arnold for Strongman competitors?

A: It is the most prestigious Strongman competition in the world. That's my opinion and the opinion of a lot of people. (Event coordinator) Terry Todd is unaffiliated with any federation. He combs through the Strongman community and picks out the 10 strongest. Just to get an invite to the competition, you're in very rare company. We are the strongest men in the world. There's no doubt about that.

Q: You guys do things like carrying stones weighing 525 pounds over a 4-foot-high bar and carry a bar weighing more than 1,100 pounds for 12 yards. A sadist must have designed this.

A: The people who watch this, they can't really grasp the reality of it. It's hard to put it into (understandable) terms. It's an amazing show. The proof is in the amount of competitors who end up getting injured every year. It's crazy. I've suffered four pretty traumatic injuries just getting ready for this competition. I nearly tore my pec off. I'm going for an MRI as we speak.

Q: I would assume pain has to be your friend.

A: Pain is a bedfellow more than a friend. You kind of go from injury to injury. Not anyone on the stage is going to be 100 percent.

Q: What's the reaction of the crowds when you guys do this stuff?

A: It's usually amazement. This is what I like about Strongman. … We're the true test of strength. Powerlifting is very static. You just pick stuff up in a single-dimensional plane. Strongmen are picking up stuff and moving it. It's actually barbaric, and that's my attraction to it. It's very functional strength. Every boy dreams of being the strongest you can possibly be. I'm kind of living out a boy's fantasy. I get to pick up some really big stuff up and move it. That's kind of cool. That's my attraction to the sport.

Not everyone can do this sport. There's a certain amount of heart and determination. There's a certain amount of God-given gift. It's a lot of genetics.

Q: How can you lift with a partially torn pec muscle?

A: It's already hurt. At this point it can't get a whole lot worse. I got the OK from my doctor. I had to make sure there were no underlying issues. I'm going to go in there and kick some (butt). We're not a bunch of prima donnas.

We bleed. We scar our bodies. We maim ourselves. We're definitely very sick and twisted individuals, usually. We do it for the pure love of the sport. That's the only reason we do it.

Q: What would it mean to win it this weekend?

A: It would mean the world. I don't think words would really express what it would mean to me. It's definitely something I've hoped and dreamed I could do. People have asked if the injury is going to hold me back. If anything, it's going to propel me forward because I've always been the underdog when I've competed. I'm able to turn something negative into a positive.